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Thursday, July 08, 2010

R.J. Harris for Congress, part 1

At first I thought that I ought not to endorse R.J. Harris. Its not that he’s not a good candidate, but, since I am an officer in the Republican Party, there might be some rule against endorsing a challenger to an incumbent in the primary. (The reason why I think there is such a rule is that Ron Paul said once that he could not endorse such challengers, but this rule may be a Texas rule or something that Ron had agreed to in exchange for some concessions. As you can see from the above video, Rand Paul is not restrained from making such an endorsement.) But now I don’t give a rat’s behind about that. I’m not going to give up my right to freedom of speech for some lousy “yes man” position. Come November, I’m not even going to hold back on endorsing third party candidates.

It’s interesting to see the logo of the Oklahoma Republican Party in back of R.J. in the above video. The field of the stars is red and the lower portion of the elephant is blue. First, they put the stars upside down to look like Satanists, and then they put them in the red field to look more like Communists. These changes seem to mirror the direction that the Republican Party has taken over last fifty years.

There are ton of reasons not to vote for Tom Cole. Cole said he believes that abortion should be legal in cases of rape and incest on a 2004 general candidate survey, but on a 2008 Oklahomans for Life candidate survey he selected the response indicating that abortion should be legal “[o]nly to prevent the death of the mother”. I have noticed that candidates tend to say one thing to one audience and another to another audience. Whether this is the case with Cole, a genuine change of mind, or just a flip-flop, I don’t know. But one thing is for sure, Cole lied when he check the box “[I support] Prohibit[ing] public funding of abortions and of organizations that advocate or perform abortions.” He did vote for a bill which funded abortions. R.J. is right about this.

H.R.3010 (enrolled, 109th Congress), Title V, section 508(b) states, “Nothing in the preceding section shall be construed as restricting the ability of any managed care provider from offering abortion coverage...” Therefore the money can (and was in fact) appropriated to Planned Parenthood through this bill which Tom Cole voted for. Furthermore, the same bill states in section 508(a):

“The limitations established in the preceding section shall not apply to an abortion--(1) if the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest; or (2) in the case where a woman suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself, that would, as certified by a physician, place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed.”

Thus, not only does the bill fund abortion indirectly by funneling money to abortion providers, but the money can be used to fund abortion directly, albeit in rare circumstances.

When Harris says that Cole voted for “Nancy Pelosi’s Stimulus Package” he is not talking about the stimulus bill which passed at the beginning of Obama’s alleged presidency. Cole voted no on H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Cole in fact cosponsored a bill to rescind all unobligated stimulus money. “Nancy Pelosi’s Stimulus Package” is the 2008 bill in which the government just handed out money to everybody (up to $600 per person). George W. Bush signed this bill into law. But I agree with Harris that this was a bad bill. (It is a redistribution of wealth as well as a windfall for the bankers who earn interest on the money that had to be borrowed to pay for it.) The way that Harris worded his statement is a little deceptive. But Cole did in fact vote for the bill (see here and here).

As of 2004, Cole did NOT support a withdraw of troops from Iraq. He said, “The U.S. must be victorious in Iraq. Our long-term interests will be strengthened by a free and democratically governed Iraq. I support President Bush's efforts to advance liberty and the war on terror.” He has no problem with pre-emptive strikes against nations which have committed no crimes against the United States or its citizens, wasting our efforts when we could be concentrating on catching the real criminals. What a waste of lives and money. (Cole was not elected to Congress until after they voted for the unconstitutional “Authorization of the Use of Military Force” in Iraq in 2002.)

Finally, he supports the continued involvement of the United States in world organizations like the U.N., WHO, NAFTA, CAFTA and GATT which are dismantling our national sovereignty piece by piece.

This post is getting to be a little too long so I will discuss Mr. Harris’ positions on the issues next week. For more on Tom Cole's dismal record, click here. To read the post in this series, click here.